The Games People Play Trivia Quiz

Answer: Monopoly

This does not apply to funtrivia.com editors, obviously; any of whom would win first prize in a beauty contest.

"You have won second prize in a beauty contest collect $10" is one of the Community Chest cards in Monopoly.

"Monopoly" is one of the world's most popular board games and many localised and specialist editions have been produced over the years.

The game owes its roots to American woman Elizabeth Magie, who invented "The Landlord's Game" in the early 1900s.

In the 1930s the game was appropriated by another person who claimed he had invented it and sold the rights to the manufacturers, Parker Brothers. He, and they, made a fortune. Elizabeth Magie received next to nothing.

Answer: Blackjack

Also know as "21" and "Pontoon", blackjack is one of the most popular gambling games around.

The concept is simple. Each player is dealt two cards and adds the value together to get to 21, or as close as possible. The ideal hand to receive is a face card (Jack, Queen, King, or Ace) and a 10, together they add up to 21.

If the two cards do not add up to 21, the player can "twist", ask for another card. They can do this as many times as they like, until they reach 21 or go "bust" - add up to more than 21.

There are local and house rules for many games. In a casino a player can "stick" on any total but the dealer must "twist" on 16 or below and "stick" on 17 or above.

The origins of the game are obscure. Some say it developed in the early 18th century from a French casino game called Vingt-et-Un. That game may well have developed out of others in existence.

Answer: Chess

Stalemate is one of those sporting terms that have evolved into common use

In chess two players compete on a board. The aim is for one to wipe the other out or get to a stage where he cannot move without losing - checkmate.

Stalemate is where one player cannot make a move and that ends the game in a draw.

At the top level of the game, just over half of contests between 'grand masters' end in draws.

Stalemate is a very technical thing and can be engineered by one player if they are in an unwinnable position but can avoid losing by forcing stalemate.

The game of chess is thought to originate from northern India in the 6th Century AD. It spread to Persia and from there the world.

Answer: Backgammon

If you thought chess was an ancient game, it is barely out of nappies compared to backgammon.

When oldest.org presented a list of the "8 Oldest Board Games In he World", it put chess at number eight and backgammon at number three.

It claimed that backgammon hailed from Ancient Persia and dates from 3,000 BCE. (Number two on the list was checkers, 3,000BC and Senet, 3,500BCE. No, I had never heard of it, either.)

Backgammon is played on a board with raised edges.

In order to explain it better, this is from gamecolony.com: "Backgammon board has 24 triangles (called "points") and has two 'home' zones - one for White and one for Black. The goal in backgammon is to move all the checkers into own home zone and then bear them off (i.e. remove them from the board). The first player who removes all of his checkers wins the game.

I couldn't have put it better myself; which is why I didn't try.

A blot is a single piece of one player occupying one of the 24 points (see above). If an opponent's throw of the dice takes his piece to that point, the piece already there is taken out of play temporarily.

Bump and pass occurs when white, for example, throws dice (two are used) that allow him to advance a piece six points, he can land on an occupied point at count three and potentially move three points beyond. A player cannot land on a point that is occupied by two or more of his opponent's pieces.

If you want to start an argument with a chess or backgammon lover, suggest to them the other game is harder and more complex.

Answer: Checkers/draughts

"Checkers: isn't that just a poor man's chess?" is something you should never say to a checkers player.

While they are played on similar boards and have a similar aim of dominating and destroying an opponent, checkers is the older of the two games and has just as many strategies.

Checkers is for two players, one with white pieces and one with back. Initially each piece can only advance one square at a time on a diagonal line. If it comes up against an opponent in the next available square it can jump over that piece if there is an open square behind it. That is a capture.

A single draught can capture as many of the opposing pieces as are lined up with a vacant square behind. If a single piece makes it to the opponent's last line of squares, it is crowned and becomes a king and thus even more powerful. A king can move backwards as well as forwards.

The winner is the player who captures all his opponent's pieces or leaves no legal move open to an opponent. A draw is also possible if neither player can force a win.

Checkers is the usual US name for a game the British call draughts.

Answer: Poker

In general conversation, "raise the ante" is taken to mean increase the effort to achieve something.

In poker, the "ante" is the amount of money that each player must commit to the common pot prior to each hand being played.

In its original sense, it means to increase the stake. An early use is noted in "Hoyle's Games Improved" of 1814 in relation to the card game brag.

Brag is a game that is often said to be similar to poker, in the sense of seeking relationships between the cards. It is a traditional British game and is older than poker.

Answer: Cribbage

Cribbage as a game dates back to 1600AD, but is thought to have been developed from earlier games.

A standard deck of cards is used, along with a unique board to record scores. It comprises a wooden board with pegs that are moved in holes. Scoring in cribbage relates to how the participants play cards to make certain scores or sequences. The winner is the first person to reach or pass 121 points.

A victory margin of 31 points or more is known as a skunk.

Answer: Scrabble

Scrabble is a board game invented in 1938 by an American architect called Alfred Mosher Butts.

The game is played on a flat board that has 225 squares, 15x15. Some are blank, others have special instructions.

At the start, each player makes a blind draw to obtain seven tiles. Each tile has a letter with numeric value on it.

By using the tiles to make prescribed words, the player gets the total score the letters add to. For example, F U N adds up to six on blank squares.

However, if any of the letters is in a square with a special instruction, the word may score more.

Double-double comes when a player puts down letters that make a word across two 'Double-Word Squares'. That quadruples the total the individual letters add to.

Answer: Snakes and ladders

Snakes and ladders is a popular children's game that began life as an ancient Indian game called Mokshapat or Moksha Patamu. In 2008, the "Times of India" noted the game had been played in the second century BC.

The rectangular board has squares numbered from one to 100. The idea is to throw a dice and use the number on the dice to move a counter. If the counter lands on a square at the bottom of a ladder on the board, the player moves to the top of the ladder. If a player lands on the head of a snake, he slides back down to the tail.

Sometimes the tail of the snake is on the first square, so landing on the head takes the player "back to square one".

According to worldistories.net, the earliest known literary use of "back to square one" appeared in 1951 in a review of a book on the "The American Economy, 1860-1940" that comments on the author's difficulty in keeping the interest of a reader "who is always being sent back to square one in a sort of intellectual game of snakes and ladders".

In fairness it should be pointed out this is one explanation for the phrase, and others exist.

Answer: Whist

In whist, and other games that involve creating "tricks", after the first card is played, to "follow suit" the next player must use a card of the same suit - spades, hearts, clubs, or diamonds.

A trick is a sequence of cards that each bear some relation to the others.

The phrase has come into common parlance with the meaning of copying something that someone else has done.